The door to the smithy swings open, and they both know who it is without having to look up.
“Morning, Master Kemp,” says Gilbert, who deeply regrets not getting the fire in his forge going the moment he arrived.
Kemp hangs his coat and hat on a hook by the door. He is an unattractive man under the best of circumstances, but this morning he looks like he’s been rode hard and put up wet. His face, which is mostly jowl, is unshaven, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He keeps what little hair he has tied up in a neat knot at the back of his thick neck, but this morning the ribbon is gone, and his gray hair hangs down around his shoulders in slick cords.
“Where the hell is everyone?” Kemp asks as soon as he takes a good look around the shop.
“Ibrahim’s out in the yard,” says Marcus. “A few of the men are asleep upstairs. And Ed and Jeffery told me they needed to go check on their families.”
“Are you the boss now?”
“No, sir,” says Marcus. “Just trying to help.”
“What would help is if everyone were at their stations,” says Kemp. “It’s not a goddamned holiday.”
While Kemp tramps up to the loft to rouse anyone who was bold enough to have gone to bed, Gilbert puts on his apron and refills the coal bucket. His whole body aches, but he can’t afford for Kemp to see him slowing down.
By the time Kemp herds everyone downstairs, he is spitting mad. “Laziest bunch of no-good good-for-nothings I ever saw,” he says as the last of them slip aprons over their heads and try to look alive.
Kemp makes a big show of lighting Gilbert’s forge, like Gilbert’s not standing right there.
He uses the slice to turn over the coals, then moves back around to the bellows to give the leather bag a squeeze. Gilbert can tell, just listening to the wheeze of the instrument, that Kemp hasn’t gotten enough air into the chamber. All the coals are going to do is smoke.
Kemp puts down the slice and picks up a fire hook, then points it at Gilbert. “Where the hell you been?”
It doesn’t pay to lie to him. The most Gilbert dares to offer is a half-truth. “This morning, sir? I been right here.”
Kemp stabs the air with the fire hook. “Don’t pretend you didn’t just walk in this door an hour ago.”
Gilbert glances at Marcus, who gave him no indication that Kemp had already been by the shop. Marcus shrugs his shoulders apologetically. Maybe he didn’t know.
“I went and helped at the theater,” says Gilbert.
“That fire burned out hours ago,” Kemp says, still brandishing the fire hook.
Gilbert is glad to have his forge between them. “It did, but then I went over to Elizabeth Preston’s place to see about her daughter.” It pains him to add, “Louisa Mayo, she among the missing.”
Kemp’s face screws up so tight it looks like a walnut, and Gilbert braces for what he knows is coming. “You work for Elizabeth Preston? Or you work for me?”
Gilbert hates to admit he works for Kemp. The man is so angry—all the time—and even though it’s only been a few months since the sale went through, Gilbert is already sick and tired of tiptoeing around him. Finally, he swallows and says, “I work for you, sir.”
CECILY
Cecily and her mother standin a dark tangle of trees, by the river, letting the loud rush of water coming down over the falls cover up their voices.
Cecily tries to explain what she needs, but Della is not listening. She keeps shaking her head and saying that there is no way she is going to help a daughter of hers do something this dangerous. “You know what will happen to you if you get caught?”
“I know, I do.”
“I’m not even talking about the beatings. If they think you at risk of running, they’ll sell you south.”
“It ain’t going to come to that.”
Della runs her hands up and down her arms, like she’s all of a sudden started feeling the cold through her thin shawl. “You don’t think nobody saw you?”
Cecily thinks about Augustine Saunders and that boy with the bony shoulders. John? No, Jack. If she tells Della about either of them, it’ll just give her one more thing to worry about. “Even if somebody saw me,” Cecily says, “there’s no saying I didn’t run back inside. I could have been trying to find Maria.”
“That poor child.”
